Pitch Update: Contractors Start Laying The New Turf At The Crown Oil Arena

14 February 2017

Contractors, along with the club’s ground staff, have been working tirelessly to re-turf the pitch at the Crown Oil Arena since Friday.

After the preparatory work was carried out over the weekend, including the removal of the old surface, all 470 tonnes of it, the large rolls of turf began arriving at regular intervals throughout the day on Monday via a convoy of 21 lorries.

Work to lay the new turf will be completed on Tuesday night.

There are around 20 people working on the pitch at any given time and the process of laying the new turf is a massive operation, as explained by Carl Pass, from Premier Pitches Sports Turf Contractors, who is overseeing the work.

“The turf we're using has been grown in Scunthorpe,” said Mr Pass.

“We looked at various sites as to where we could find the best turf from and the only one we found better than that was in Slovakia but that was a bit far to fetch over to Rochdale! The turf from Scunthorpe is a good quality and is a soil based turf.

“The first job was to remove the old surface because it was defective. Over the weekend, we then prepared the surface by raking, adding sand, seaweed and fertiliser amongst various other products, all in preparation for the new turf to be laid, and that's happening now.

“Once it’s down, the turf will then be rolled and prepared for Saturday’s game against Charlton Athletic.”